Inca 1972

Alexander Calder made ‘Inca’, using gouache and ink, and you can almost feel him dancing across the paper. The palette’s bright, but it’s the heavy black ink that really anchors the composition, giving it a graphic punch. There's something almost urgent about the way Calder applies the gouache, like he's chasing after an idea. Look at the flat, opaque quality of the paint, and then those confident, almost calligraphic ink strokes. The circle, slightly off-center, feels like a pivot point, grounding the more ephemeral shapes that hover around it. See how the black spikes shoot out from behind, it’s a visual tension between the geometric and the organic. Calder reminds me a little of Joan Miró, someone else who wasn’t afraid to embrace a playful vocabulary. But where Miró goes dreamy, Calder keeps it grounded, almost architectural. It's a reminder that art, at its best, is an ongoing conversation, full of surprising detours.